A Life on the Road — One Saturday at a Time

For more than twenty-five years Martin Hesp has written about the landscapes, people and traditions of the West Country. In this episode he reflects on growing up in West Somerset, the shadow that war cast over his childhood, and how local history — from Viking raids to Alfred the Great — shaped the imagination of a generation.

If you’ve picked up the Western Morning News or the Western Daily Press on a Saturday morning at any point in the last quarter-century, you’ve probably seen my name.

Since 1999 — and in truth going back even further, to when I first entered the trade as a seventeen-year-old in 1973 — I’ve spent my life documenting the soul of the West Country.

But it was my move to the Western Morning News at the turn of the millennium that really set the pace. Since then, through the merger of the feature departments of the WMN and the Western Daily Press, I have been your eyes and ears on the ground.

Recently I sat down and did the sums. The numbers are rather startling.

Every week for twenty-six years I have produced a 900-word column. When you add the features and the Hesp Out West travel pieces, we aren’t just talking about a career — we’re talking about a library.

That amounts to more than 1.17 million words written specifically for Saturday readers.

Think about that for a moment.

That’s more than ten hefty novels’ worth of writing, all dedicated to the farmers, fishermen, cider-makers, walkers, storytellers, and the rugged landscapes that make up our peninsula.

Over the years I’ve held titles such as Senior Feature Writer and Editor-at-Large. In truth those titles simply meant I had a licence to be curious — a notebook in my pocket, a tape recorder in my bag, and the freedom to roam from the Somerset Levels to the far edges of the Atlantic coast.

But here’s the challenge.

Many of the readers who have followed my work since 1999 are part of a loyal, traditional rural readership. They enjoy the feel of newsprint between their fingers and the ritual of reading a newspaper over breakfast.

Bringing that audience into the digital world — onto a website and into a podcast — is something of a leap.

It’s a journey from the physical pages of the twentieth century into the digital airwaves of the twenty-first.

In this episode I’m dipping into the archives. I’m looking back at those twenty-six years of deadlines, the million-plus words, and the thousands of miles travelled in search of stories.

From the early days of the newsroom merger to the Hesp Out West interviews I’m now editing into this very programme.

I’m Martin Hesp, and this is a look at a life spent on the road — one Saturday at a time.

When the Word “War” Was Everywhere

When I was growing up in West Somerset, the word “war” was never far from people’s lips — especially us boys.

Two-thirds of our teachers had fought in the Second World War, and some carried physical wounds to prove it. Many of the male teachers also seemed to bear deeper scars.

There was no counselling back then. The term Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder hadn’t even been invented.

But looking back, it seems obvious that some of those troubled men were suffering badly.

In the 1950s and 60s nobody spoke about World War Two. It was simply “The War.”

Perhaps that was because the memories were still so fresh. Everyone over the age of eighteen had lived through it in some form or another.

Hearing the Word Again

Now, sixty years later, people are talking about war again.

It is not here. We cannot hear the crump of explosions or feel the same immediate fear.

But we are aware it is happening somewhere.

Perhaps we know someone serving overseas. Or perhaps we are simply watching the numbers tick upwards on the fuel pumps, aware that conflict far away can ripple through everyday life.

It’s terrible. Horrible. Frightening.

As a West Country newspaper columnist I cannot claim any special wisdom that might shed light on the present conflicts of the world.

I have travelled extensively in the region. I have opinions, of course — about governments, leaders and ideologies — but when I see television footage of bombed schools and shattered communities, words fail me.

Sometimes when vast events unfold on the world stage, all ordinary people can really do is turn inward and reflect on what war has meant in their own lives.

The Fascination of War — Through a Boy’s Eyes

Oddly enough, war didn’t frighten us West Country boys back then.

We rather liked the idea of it.

We read comics filled with daring dogfights. We spent our pocket money on Airfix models of Spitfires and Messerschmitts. And we never tired of war films at the cinema.

And we didn’t have to travel far to be reminded that war was real.

Just opposite our school lay a field called Battlegore.

It had been excavated by the same archaeologist who uncovered the famous Glastonbury Lake Village. Among the finds were human remains and several Bronze Age weapons — including a knife-dagger, a winged axe, and a spearhead dating from between 1500 and 1000 BC.

Bones and weapons.

No wonder the place was called Battlegore.

But those discoveries told a story far older than the local legend which claimed the field had once been the site of a fierce battle between Viking raiders and local men.

Vikings on the Somerset Coast

According to the chronicles, sometime around 914 or 918 AD, a Viking fleet landed just a mile or two away.

Jarls Ohter and Hroald came ashore intending to pillage the royal mint at Watchet and the estate at Williton.

But the local Saxon fyrd — the militia — was waiting.

The Vikings were beaten so thoroughly that the survivors fled across the Bristol Channel to the islands of Steep Holm or Flat Holm.

According to the story, they starved there.

As boys we found all this tremendously exciting.

Our quiet little corner of Somerset suddenly seemed full of heroic violence and legendary battles.

Alfred, Vikings, and a Cinematic Moment

We pestered our teachers constantly about the wars they had seen.

“What was it like, Sir? Shooting someone — what was it like?”

Most of them did not answer.

Instead they stared into the distance with a look we did not understand.

Many of them were not great teachers. Some even managed to make the famous story of King Alfred burning the cakes sound dull.

But the real history behind those events was anything but dull.

The Vikings were attempting to trap Alfred in a pincer movement.

Their main army under Guthrum hunted him through the Somerset marshes, trying to flush him out of the wetlands that protected him like a natural fortress.

Meanwhile another Viking warlord, Hubba (or Ubba), was sent west to block Alfred’s escape into Devon or Cornwall.

That plan did not end well.

Hubba chased a band of local warriors up to the hillfort above Lynmouth at Countisbury and surrounded them. The fort had no water supply, so the Vikings simply waited for thirst to do their work.

But the trapped Saxons made a desperate decision.

Instead of surrendering, they burst from the fort in an all-or-nothing charge.

It worked.

Hubba was killed, along with somewhere between 800 and 1,200 of his men.

The Lesson History Should Teach

Now, I realise that describing these ancient battles can become strangely exciting.

It’s easy to get carried away with tales of heroic charges and glorious victories.

But perhaps that is exactly the point.

War often begins as a story told by powerful men — full of bravado, certainty and grand plans.

The reality, as generations before us have learned, is very different.

Gung-ho shooting matches decided by a handful of bombastic leaders belong in the history books.

One would hope humanity might have learned that lesson by now.